May 28, 2008

Walid Phares is a man steeped with understanding of the political and military machinations of the Middle East and is originally from Lebanon. Therefore any strategic assessment he provides should be taken seriously.

About a week ago, Dr. Phares wrote a long post on the strategic implications of the completion of Hezb'allah's shadow fibre-optic network in Lebanon.

May 27, 2008

This brilliant theoretical physicist writes two book reviews for the NY Review of Books. Topic? Global Warming. In particular policy prescriptions & the scientific climate. Bottom line of several pages of review?

Assuming AGW is true, a global carbon tax (determined by some sort of optimisation routine) increasing over time is most efficient economic mechanism. Call this the "optimal policy".

Policy prescription: "Avoid the ambitious proposals. Develop the science and technology for a low-cost backstop (cheap solar, "carbon-eating trees" &c - my addition). Negotiate an international treaty coming as close as possible to the optimal policy, in case the low-cost backstop fails. Avoid an international treaty making the Kyoto Protocol policy permanent."

Policy prescriptions proposed by Stern and Gore are "disastrously expensive".

Some context: Dyson is a proponent of AGW. And a lefty. And despite both of these deep seated convictions he remains more dispassionate and insightful than most (including myself).

Italy's far-right, anti-immigrant Northern League party has started its mission in the new government with bringing down a mosque in the northern city of Verona. Bulldozers brought down last week a building housing a Muslim prayer room in the city..."I never felt at ease with this mosque," Elisonder Antonneli, the head of Verona city council, said. "This place will be turned into a park and a car parking space and will be named after (Italian writer) Oriana Fallaci."

May 25, 2008

The belief that the China growth story will continue into the indefinite future is so deeply ingrained at both the political and business levels that any dissent is either ignored or summarily dismissed. Upon this belief rests the hope that we will escape the worst of any US economic slowdown.

May 24, 2008

Thomas P.M. Barnett argues that Bob Gates has begun to shift the Department of Defense's thinking on force structure and the likely form of America's enemies in the coming century. In particular, Gates poo-poos "next-war-itis", the idea that the armed forces should be organised and equipped for the next war with a great power (take your pick: China, Russia &c) saying "it is hard to conceive of any country confronting the United States directly in conventional terms".

May 19, 2008

Just under two months ago, I noted that Dick Cheney had gone to Saudi Arabia to discuss oil only a month or so after his boss, the President of the United States visited the Kingdom, groveling for more. On this second visit, Cheney did not go to discuss the bandwidth of Saudi oil pipelines. Rather, he went armed to deliver an ultimatum of sorts: pump more crude, or we start turning coal to oil. Well, looks like the rhetoric has been ratcheted a notch.

May 18, 2008

I've just started to reacquaint myself with the books and am currently half way through the first book (chronologically), The Magician's Nephew. For one reason or another, I had forgotten about these books after I had read them at high school (probably year 7). How I did, I have no idea. For in The Founding of Narnia we have creation described so vividly and spectacularly; his writing is as enchanting as the world he describes.

I have loved C.S. Lewis' non-fictional works (The Four Loves, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain etc). However, at first glance his fictional work is a masterpiece.